It's a Hard Rain That's Gonna Fall
by MaverickLover2
Summary: Dealing with the floods of 1885 and the aftermath.
1. Before the Deluge

It's a Hard Rain that's Gonna Fall

Chapter 1 – Before the Deluge

We don't get a lot of rain in central Texas. Oh, we get a decent amount, but it's not what anybody would call a lot. That's why the floods in 1885 were so unexpected. They almost destroyed the ranch, and we lost a lot of livestock to go along with it.

I'm Bart Maverick and, along with my brother Bret, I own the B Bar M Ranch. No, we don't raise steers. We specialize in cross-bred horses. Arabians with Criollos, Arabians with Mustangs, the cross-bred with the Mustangs, and just about anything else we can get our hands on. We've gotten to be pretty well known over the years, and I tell you, it's a better way to make a living than when we were gamblers, roving all around the country. We were young and carefree, following the profession that our father and Uncle Ben had practiced before us. There were too many nights we slept on the ground, too many towns we were run out of, and too many jails we saw the inside of. When I finally got tired of it and settled down, it was in our hometown of Little Bend, Texas, smack in the middle of the state. I bought Uncle Ben's land when he moved to Baton Rouge, and the process of building the ranch got started.

Bret played poker a little longer than I did, but when he finally married and wanted a place to live, it was on ranch land. Then we both commenced to raisin' families, mine bigger than his, and eventually Pappy, a returned Uncle Ben, and cousin Beau moved to the ranch. Good thing I had the foresight to buy a lot of land. Pauly Wilcox, my wife's business partner, supervised and participated in most of the building. Me and Bret helped with the corrals and the cross-breeding barn, but Pauly and his crew were responsible for building most of it. We finally had Pauly build himself a house on the far corner of the property. That makes it easier for him and my wife, Doralice, to work together. They've invented a lot of things that make all of our lives more functional around the house.

Oh, I almost forgot about Dandy. My good friend Dandy Jim Buckley had Pauly build him a house on the far corner of the ranch, away from all the barns and corrals and houses. I call him my friend because him and Bret go at it like cats and dogs. So Bret won't claim him as a friend, although they can get along when they want to and have worked together on many occasions. After it was finished Dandy bought the land and the house from us.

We've had some great times and some not so great times around the ranch. But we've got a good bunch of guys working with us, especially Lucien, our foreman. Lucien Walters had been hired away from the ranch he was workin' on in El Paso when me and my oldest daughter Maudie went out there to buy some Criollo horses. Lucien had turned out to be a grade A cowboy, and the second smartest thing Bret ever did was make him the foreman.

We had another real standout, too, in Lee Patterson. He was just learning the horse business, but he was bright and caught on quick. I'd hoped that Benny, Cousin Beau's son, would be the young man to step into the number two spot, but when he went off to buy his own ranch Lee stepped in. I could see what he was gonna be when all was said and done, and I just hoped and prayed that he didn't want his own ranch, too.

And it's not just the men. My oldest daughter Maude is as involved in the horses and the ranch as anyone here. She was the one who had the idea to cross-breed the blue roans with the Corollas, and then cross-breed the result of that with the Arabians. We ended up with a unique and top of the line sturdy horse. Maude is determined to run the ranch one day, and I have the feeling she will. Beauregard, my oldest boy, has absolutely no interest in ranching, and Bret's sons are much younger.

Like I said before, Beau's son Benny would have been another logical choice to take over the B Bar M, but he was determined to have his own ranch. After a lot of struggle, he finally made his dream come true, and he's happy being his own boss, with all the ups and downs that come with it.

But nothing that we'd ever faced in all the years we've had this ranch prepared us for what was to come.

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	2. The Rain

Chapter 2 – The Rain

Like I said about the rain in central Texas, we usually don't get a lot of it here. To the north of us and to the south of us, but not in the central valley. So none of us were prepared for what followed.

It started rainin' on a Thursday. At first it was just a nice, steady little rain and we were all enjoying it. It rained like that Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It slowed us down some but didn't stop us. We have two big barns that we could work in, and that's just what we did.

By Sunday we'd all had enough of it. And that's when it really started to pour. It was raining so hard outside that we were back in the barns, working with the new crop of foals and the yearlings. Dandy was handling the horses that had a behavioral problem; I had no idea the man was so brilliant with problem animals. There's only so much you can do inside the barns, however, and somewhere around three o'clock we had to go back to our houses and pray that the rain would stop.

It didn't. On Monday it continued in a steady downpour, and I began to worry about flooding. My house was on an incline, as was Dandys, but Brets and Beaus were down at the bottom of the hill. We talked seriously about fillin' up bags of sand, just in case, and decided that would be on the agenda for Tuesday. By Tuesday morning it had become a necessity. The rain continued to pound down all through Tuesday and it didn't look like it was gonna quit anytime soon.

I got Bret and Beau together and we discussed what needed to be done. "I think the two of you better gather your families and the things you can't live without and come up to my place. We'll move the kids around so that you'll each have a bedroom and a dry place to stay."

"Do you really think the houses are gonna flood?" Beau asked.

"I do. The way things are goin' it could be sometime tonight or tomorrow."

"Poor Lily Mae. Just what she needs, nine more people to cook for." The look on Bret's face said it all.

"Don't worry about that. There's three extra hands that all know how to cook. We might have to eat in shifts, but we'll get it done."

"What about Pappy and Uncle Ben? You think their houses will be alright?" Bret had the right to be concerned, but I didn't think their houses were in danger. Yet. I was more worried about the livestock and the barns.

"I think they're fine for now. We'll keep an eye on their houses and see how it goes." Pappy's and Ben's houses were on higher ground than Bret and Beau's, but not as high up the hill as mine.

We spent the rest of the day moving a baby, four children, four adults and the necessities of life to my house. I wasn't gonna be any help in the cooking department, but I helped Lily make beds and move furniture. We moved Breton and Tim in with Beauregard and moved Lily Beth in with Maudie. That freed up the two rooms we needed. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it was the best we could do. At least Bret, Beau and their families would be warm and dry.

It was still raining on Wednesday, and the road was washed out. We spent the morning distributing the bags of sand and hoping they would be effective. The horses were getting restless, confined to their stalls, and we tried to take them to the two indoor corrals we had to give them a little exercise. Fortunately, the cows didn't care if they had room to move around, as long as they got fed.

We'd moved as much of the chicken coop as we could into the barn with the cows, but it was far from an ideal situation. The chickens were a noisy, smelly lot, and they were crammed into a coop about half the size of normal because that's all we could get inside. It was looking more and more like we were gonna have to move Pappy and Uncle Ben, and I had no more room. I rode up to Dandy's house and explained the situation. Given the choice of having Pappy and Uncle Ben as guests or Bret and Beau's clans, Dandy naturally chose Pappy and Ben. At least there would be two women there that could cook for them, and he and Bret didn't have to put up with each other.

Thursday was no different than the prior week had been. We'd been cooped up for so long that we were all beginning to go stir crazy. Me and Bret went down to see about his house, and he was a most unhappy man. The place was definitely flooded, with mud and debris everywhere. "I guess you'll be getting a new house," I told him and he made a face.

"You know what a pain that's gonna be? Ginny should be happy, she was tellin' me just last week how old and worn out our furniture was. It's gonna be expensive."

"Well, there's not much you can do about it. Let's go see how Beau's house has fared." And I headed back out the door.

Beau's house was even more of a mess. Anything that had avoided Bret's had taken refuge in Beau's. I could tell that Pauly was gonna be a real busy man for the next several months. The count stood at two houses and a new chicken coop so far. "Let's go check Pappys and Bens places."

"Good idea," I told my brother as I slapped him on the back. "Guess you're gonna be guests at our house for a while."

"That should be interesting. Can you just imagine what Ginny and Doralice can cook up when they're together all day?" Bret seemed to find that funny.

"Don't remind me," I shot back.

We went to Pappy's house first. We had laid sandbags up against his front door, and they seemed to be effective. So far so good. It was still dry inside, and we wasted no time going to Ben's. Ben wasn't so lucky, even though we'd done the same thing with the sandbags as we did at Pappys. Thy seemed to have slowed it down, however, as the mud and water had stopped about three feet inside the door. "I guess we better go check the barns."

Bret nodded his head and we set off for the cross-breed barn. There was a leak in the roof way back in the corner, but that wouldn't be too tough to fix if it ever stopped raining. Then we went to the livestock barn. That, sad to say, was a mess. There was water and mud everywhere; some of the cows had been standing in it for God knows how long. We herded the animals into the dry part of the barn and they weren't too happy because they were jammed in, twenty cows in a pen designed to hold ten at the most. Next was the barn where we kept the pregnant mares, and it, too, had been flooded. The stall in front had taken the worst of it, full of water and mud almost a foot deep, and we had a mare down. We rushed in to see what we could do, but she was already gone. It was one of the Arabian cross-breeds and she'd been almost ready to foal. I don't know who was the most broken-hearted, me or Bret.

We headed back to the house to clean up and get dry. Before we went in I looked up at the sky. It was dark and cloudy, the same way it had been for a week. "When is this rain gonna let up?" I asked my brother.

"God only knows. And even he might not be sure."

When we got back to the house everyone was there waitin' for us, anxious to find out what had been destroyed and what had survived. "Bret and Beau's houses are a total loss. Both houses are gonna need new furniture; what's there has been ruined by the water and mud. Pappy's is alright for now, but Ben's is gonna need some work. The mud has invaded the first three feet of it right inside the front door. The cross-breed barn's got a hole in the roof, the livestock barn was flooded, and we lost a mare that was about ready to foal. I don't know how much longer we can stand this rain."

"Which mare did we lose, Daddy?" Maude asked me.

I'd hoped that I wouldn't have to tell her right away, but that was not to be. "I'm sorry, honey, it was one of yours. The blue roan cross-breed that was in the front stall."

"Do you know what happened?" There was a tremor in her voice.

"No, sweetheart, I don't."

"It could have been trauma," Bret told her. "That front stall took the worst of the flooding, and the mud was pretty deep by the time we got to her."

"Is there anything we can do to prevent any further damage?" Ginny asked.

"If we had more sandbags . . . but we don't. I can't think of anything, Ginny. Bret, you got any ideas?"

"Yeah, but I don't think I can make it stop raining."

My brother, the jokester.


	3. The Rain Takes a Toll

Chapter 3 – The Rain Takes a Toll

Friday dawned bright and clear, and we thought the worst was over. By noon everything had gotten dark and cloudy again, and the rain started in, just as hard as it rained earlier in the week. We'd been successful in stopping the water and mud from invading any more of the mares with foal barn, but that was the only dry one.

Bret and me got dressed for another day of slogging around in the water and mud, and Beau joined us. Much to my consternation, Maudie put on jeans and boots and came to help, too. Good thing she's tall because the water threatened to top her boots.

By Friday afternoon we knew we had to get the cows and the chickens out of the livestock barn. I'd had the mistaken impression that it couldn't get any worse and it seemed somebody was out to prove me wrong. The only place we could put them was way in the back in the mares barn. The cross-breed barn was packed to the rafters with horses of all lineage, and we couldn't get another animal in there if we tried.

I checked Pappy's place again and it was still dry, thank heavens. Beau looked in on his father's place, and the water had so far been confined to that original three feet inside the door.

I was already soaking wet, so I went down to the bunkhouse to check on the boys. They were going stir crazy, not being able to do anything but sit around. Two poker games were in progress, and I called for volunteers to help us move the cows and chickens. Every hand in the bunkhouse went up, even Lucien's. He got tired of being alone in the foreman's house. I guess herding cows and moving chickens in the pouring rain was preferable to another afternoon of boredom. We had to herd some very unhappy cows from one tight spot to another, and the chickens weren't gonna be any happier about it. I picked six of our longer employees and took them with me after they put on as much raingear as they could.

Even with nine people, including me, Bret and Beau, it still took us the better part of two hours to get everything and everybody moved. I wasn't sure how the mares were going to react to the noisy chickens and relatively noisy cows, but I didn't see that we had too much choice in the matter. Lucien volunteered to stay in the barn the rest of the day and see how things went.

By early evening everything had settled down some, primarily due to us feeding all the animals. By the time we got done and we all went back to our respective homes, I was sneezing and shivering. Too much bein' out in the rain I guess, and I was hoping it would just go away once I got warm and dry. Lily Mae, Ginny and Doralice had been cooking all day, and Beau volunteered to carry a big pot of beef stew down to the bunkhouse. We had more of the stew for supper, and as soon as I'd eaten I went to bed. It was obvious that I was gettin' sick, and Doralice did her best to take care of me. I'd added chills to my list of symptoms, and my wife declared that I was not going back out in the weather anymore.

I don't remember much of Saturday. Chills, fever, sneezing, that I remember. Add a headache and a sore throat to the mix and you pretty well know what I had. Bret told me later that he and Beau had done the rounds, and Lucien had checked all the barns. The mares seemed to be doing pretty well so far; none of them were too upset by the additional noise.

Dandy and Pappy came down, Doralice told me later. She said they looked in on me, and Pappy made her promise that if I wasn't any better on Sunday, she'd send somebody to town for the doctor. I was so out of it that I don't remember seeing them. Sunday was about the same, both with me and the rain. Simon tried to get there on Sunday but all the normal roads were washed out and he had to go around the back way, up by the cemetery, to get to the house. He'd forgotten about the back road until it was too late and he'd already gone back to town.

Monday I was a little better, and I remember Simon finally getting to the house. He made me drink some foul tasting liquid that he described as medicine, as well as some laudanum. The medicine must have forced the issue because by Tuesday morning my fever had broken and I felt somewhat better. I actually remember most of Tuesday, but nothing had changed outdoors.

Bret had some news that he wanted to share but he'd hesitated because of my illness. It wasn't good news; we'd lost the livestock barn and the pregnant mares were startin' to get restless.

"What happened to the barn?" I finally felt well enough to ask him.

"Well, the roof developed a hole, and the leak got bigger and bigger until the roof collapsed. Pauly's gonna hafta rebuild the whole thing."

"You know what that means, don't you?"

Bret thought about it for a minute and was still scratching his head when I gave him the answer he didn't wanna hear. "The animals hafta come first. He's not gonna be able to even start on your houses until he's done with the barn."

"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Can we get some of the cowhands to help?"

"I would think there's a few that might be able to help. Pauly's got his own crew, too. And they've gotta patch that roof, first."

"Well, Brother Bart, looks like we're gonna be with you for a while."

"Yep."

It was another three days before Doralice would even let me outta bed, much less go outside. That means it was Friday when she allowed me out of the bedroom, and Saturday before I was cleared to go outdoors. And she wasn't happy about it.

By that time it had been raining for over two weeks. There was nothin' but water and mud everywhere. The way it was goin', it was never gonna dry up.


	4. Clean-Up on Aisle Seven

Chapter 4 – Clean-Up on Aisle Seven

It rained another three days and quit. Finally. Our roads were a mess. Our houses were a mess. Our barns were a mess. Some of our livestock was dead. After I got well, Bret came down with it, only it hit him harder than it hit me.

Pappy's place was dry as a bone; Ben's mess was confined to the first three feet of his front room. Both houses were liveable. That meant that both could go home and leave Dandy in peace for all of about five minutes. Bret's and Beau's houses were completely destroyed. Remember that five minutes of peace that Dandy got? It was going to take several months to rebuild both houses, and Dandy had a choice . . . Beau's family or Bret's. I had to give Lily Mae a break, and the only way I could do that was to send one family someplace else. Naturally, Dandy chose Beau's to come stay at his place. I think maybe Connie had something to do with that; she was a wonderful lady and beautiful to look at, besides. And the thought of having Bret there was more than Dandy could stomach.

Part of the reason that rebuilding the houses would take so long was the fact that the livestock barn had to be rebuilt first, and the hole in the roof of the other horse barn needed repair. It was a week before the roads were dry enough to ride on, and then I sent Pauly to town to order the lumber he needed for the barn. That was the same day we were finally able to turn the cows out into the corral without fear of them sinking in the mud.

We lost six cows, three pigs, and the mare in foal. And probably about half the chickens. The ranch hands that stayed worked with Pauly's men cleaning up the debris and helping build the new barn. After that was built, they could go back to bein' cowboys instead of the clean-up crew.

Altogether it took almost a full year before we were back to normal. Bret's house was built higher up on the hill, and Beau decided to do the same. So once again they were our neighbors, only closer. Dandy proclaimed that he walked around his house for more than an hour, reveling in the quiet. Pauly and his whole crew took three days off and then went to Little Bend.

When I finally rode into the town I found it was an even bigger mess. Maude's had survived without being too damaged. According to Billy it needed clean-up more than anything. Some of the other businesses weren't so lucky. The cigar store was damaged beyond repair and part of Sawyer's was flooded. Two or three other small shops were ruined, and the Little Bend Bar was a big mess, having been overrun with mud. Benny White wasn't sure if he was gonna reopen or just call it a day. I was sorry to hear that; the Little Bend Bar had been a big part of my growin' up.

The flood was a destructive force, and we were lucky to have survived it with no more damage than we had. I hope I never have to go through that again, but every time it begins to rain I wonder . . . is there another one out there with central Texas' name on it?

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